Affiliations

Specialty

Current Research

Molecular genetics of Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's

Biography

Ming Guo, M.D., Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in Neurology, and Molecular and Medical Pharmacology at UCLA. As a Board Certified Neurologist trained at UCLA, she sees patients with neurological disorders, particularly neurodegenerative diseases and neurogenetic disorders, at the UCLA Medical Center. She draws referrals locally, as well as from out of the state and Asia. Based on her performance on the patient-based Neurology Board Certification Examination, she was selected directly by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in 2003 to serve as a national Neurology Oral Board Examiner. In this capacity, she has evaluated hundreds of neurologists nationwide for their clinical competence to be Board certified. She is also an elected member of the American Neurological Association (ANA), and was awarded the ANA Derek Denny-Brown Neurological Scholar for 2009. This award is given each year to an ANA member "who has achieved a significant stature in neurological research and who promises to continue making major contributions to the field of Neurology".
In addition to being a physician, Dr. Guo is also a research scientist. She received her Ph.D. from Dr. Yuh Nung Jan's laboratory at the University of California San Francisco, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) for her work on neuronal stem cell development during asymmetric cell divisions. Following a postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Larry Zipursky at HHMI at UCLA, she became a faculty at UCLA in 2002. Currently, in addition to seeing patients, she runs a research laboratory working on molecular genetic mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases including Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease. Her research has been funded by several grants and awards from the National Institute of Health. In addition, she has received numerous prestigious fellowships and awards. She is an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation fellow, a McKnight Brain Disorder awardee, a Klingenstein Fellow, the 12th Robert H. Ebert Clinical Scholar of the Klingenstein Foundation, an Ellison Medical Foundation Scholar in Aging, a Larry L. Hillblom Foundation Startup Grantee.

Honors and Awards

International Fellowship, American Association of University Women (AAUW).

1989

Regents Fellowship, University of California.

1991

Nonresident Tuition Scholarship, UCSF.

1993

Nonresident Tuition Scholarship, UCSF.

2000

Annual Resident Research Award, Neurology, UCLA.

2001

Jean-Louis Riehl Award for Outstanding Research during Neurology Residency.

2001

Giannini Medical Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship.

2001

The John Douglas French Alzheimer's Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship.

2001

Art Linkletter Award for the Distinguished Postdoc of the Year, the John Douglas French Alzheimer's Foundation.

2002

National Institute of Health, Career Development Award for Mentored Physician Scientists (KO8).

2003-present

Examiner for Neurology Oral Boards, the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.

2003

The Larry L. Hillblom Foundation Startup Grantee.

2003

The Ellison Medical Foundation New Scholar in Aging (2nd - 4th year support declined due to funding overlap).

2004

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship in Neuroscience.

2008

Junior Faculty Preclinical Research Award, Neurology, UCLA.

2008

National Institute of Health, Career Development Award for Independent Physician Scientists (KO2).

2008

Klingenstein Foundation the 12th Robert H. Ebert Clinical Scholar (given to the most outstanding physician scientist of the year among awardees).

2008

Klingenstein Fellowship Awards in the Neuroscience.

2008

The McKnight Neuroscience Foundation Brain Disorder Award.

2009

Elected Member, American Neurological Association.

2009

Derek Denny-Brown Neurological Scholar Award, American Neurological Association (ANA) (This award is given each year to a young ANA member "who has achieved a significant stature in neurological research and who promises to continue making major contributions to the field of Neurology". The awardee presents his/her work at the annual ANA meeting.)

Huh JR, Guo M, and Hay BA. Compensatory proliferation induced by cell death in the Drosophila wing disc requires activity of the apical cell death caspase Dronc in a nonapoptotic role. Current Biology 2004;14:1262-1266.

Deng H, Dodson MW, Huang H, and Guo M. The Parkinson's disease genes pink1 and parkin promote mitochondrial fission and/or inhibit fusion. PNAS 2008;105:14503-14508. [This paper was selected by Thomson Reuters ScienceWatch® Essential Science IndicatorsSM as a featured New Hot Paper in the field of Neuroscience and Behavior. According to Thomson Reuters, it is one of the most-cited papers in its discipline published during the past two years.]